86 Daytona Beach cold cases include murders, missing people

When detectives stepped into Deborah Hohenshilt's bedroom they found two teeth and blood at the bottom of the stairs.

By Patricio G. Balonapatricio.balona@news-jrnl.com

DAYTONA BEACH — When detectives stepped into Deborah Hohenshilt's bedroom they found two teeth and blood at the bottom of the stairs.Hohenshilt has not been seen since the night of Feb. 13, 1988, and investigators still don't know where she is or what happened to her, said Daytona Beach police cold case investigator Clem Malek.One thing police learned for sure is that the 26-year-old who worked two jobs adored her cats and would not have abandoned them. The felines were found unattended in the Tanglewood Street apartment.“One can assume foul play happened to her but we don't have any hint on who done it,” Malek said.Malek retired from the Daytona Beach Police Department in 1998 but returned as a cold case investigator in 2008 when a serial killer left prostitutes shot to death in the city beginning in 2005.Malek paged through a stack of papers listing nine missing persons and 77 unsolved homicides — silenced victims whose killers did not leave much for detectives to work with. But the names, some ages, limited information gathered on the missing and the circumstances that took the lives of homicide victims tell their stories, however brief they may be.Hohenshilt's parents were both dead and she was raised by her grandmother. Her boyfriend was eliminated as a person of interest after friends corroborated he was at Daytona International Speedway for the Daytona 500, Malek said.Almost a decade before Hohenshilt's disappearance, a mystery began involving an exotic dancer.What is known about 19-year-old Mary Sprague is that she was working at the Shingle Shack Lounge and was last seen working in her leopard print dance outfit. Known to like hitchhiking, Sprague hasn't been heard from since leaving work about 1 a.m. Sept. 12, 1979. All police know is that she left a 3-year-old child with her live-in boyfriend, who reported her missing when she didn't come home. Police learned that on the night she disappeared, Sprague had a fight with her boss, threatening to turn him in to the Internal Revenue Service if he didn't pay her back wages.“Since she was never found, there was never any information against him (the boss),” Malek said.

Since Sprague's disappearance, several others came on the Daytona Beach Police Department's books as missing:Diane Hollins, 31, and her daughter, Tammy Hollins, 14, a student, disappeared while walking from home toward the railroad tracks on Park Drive in 1979;William Henning, 33, part owner of a business, who did not return from a business trip in 1980;Darlene Webb, 20, not seen since leaving the Beachcomber Bar on Grandview Avenue in 1983;Julie Seay, 24, last seen at her Ormond Beach workplace in 1988;Marintha McCoy, 26, seen leaving the Marriott Hotel in a limo in 1989;Linda Little, 43, who disappeared while riding a bicycle at Peninsula and Broadway;Helen Vanbeek, 46, missing since Bike Week 1998. “We are trying to get answers so families who have not heard or seen their loved ones can at least get some closure,” Malek said.Closure is what Faye Fazelli, 43, has been hoping for since her mother, Vanbeek, disappeared 15 years ago. Holding on to the idea that she is still alive has slowly faded and she has started to accept that her mom is probably dead. Detective after detective after detective at the Daytona Beach Police Department have given her the same answer: There are no leads.“It makes me feel like nobody cares about it,” Fazelli said in a telephone interview, breaking down. “It is a very sad and lonely feeling.”Vanbeek was known to fraternize with bikers and police believe she was upset with her live-in boyfriend and leaving for North Carolina.In their continuing efforts to find Vanbeek, police have obtained DNA samples from Fazelli in case a deceased person needs identification in the future, Malek said.Vanbeek, originally from Minnesota, was a day laborer and worked in construction and loved camping, Fazelli said.“Her boyfriend called me and said he had not seen my mother after she packed her things and left in a white truck,” Fazelli said.

Though the killers in 77 unsolved Daytona Beach murders are unknown, police are very familiar with the manner in which they took the lives of their victims. Cold case records show victims were left in homes, apartment buildings, on streets, in woods, or near a Dumpster, like in the case of a 3- to 6-hour-old baby.A killer even left his victim in a church.Hazel Fenty, 77, was found dead from a knife wound in a church at 950 Williamson Blvd., Malek said.The methods of the killings vary. Victims were shot, sometimes multiple times, pushed out of windows in high-rise buildings, strangled, stabbed, beaten, burned or run over with vehicles. One man, Michael Patterson, 24, was found shot to death with a nail gun.Some victims, like Alan Robertson, 65, a businessman and photographer shot dead by a burglar at his Pelican Bay home in 1996 as he tried to disarm the suspect pointing a gun at his wife, were known widely in the community, Malek said. Robertson was an “affable person,” said Harry Heilman of Ormond Beach, a good friend. Friends still fondly remember Robertson at gatherings, wondering if his killer will ever be found.“You can't forget a good friend, especially if he did unexpected things that made you laugh,” Heilman said. Robertson came to lunch at Kay's Kitchen on Main Street one day and surprised his friends, especially because he brought a live chicken with him.“He set the chicken in the middle of the table, turned the chicken over and massaged its belly,” a laughing Heilman recounted recently. “The chicken passed out.“And then, in his unique British accent he announced, 'Did you know that if you massage a chicken's belly, it passes out?' ” Heilman said laughing. Heilman said he and his friends believe catching a killer would bring closure to Robertson's family.Malek said that these are cases he looks at all the time and his biggest desire is to provide answers to victims' families.The cold cases include four babies, Malek said. “I would like to have them solved.”